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Moon: Gravitational Anomalies

Lunar Gravitation Anomalies, Moon landings :

From NASA Spaceflight Systems, Education: “Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it.”Newton’s First Law of Motion-NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administrationhttps://spaceflightsystems.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/newton.html

1st Law Doubt
Newton’s laws of motion were devised more than 300 years ago and contrary to what may be assumed, NASA still uses them in their original form. I can find no evidence that any attempt has been made to include modern updates or improvements such as those of Einstein. Moon and Mars missions have been and still are conducted with the original version of Newton’s laws. However, when we deconstruct the first law, we observe that nothing is in a state of rest – everything in the universe is moving. Everything is in orbit about something else and so nothing moves in a straight line. Additionally, every body in the universe is gravitationally affected by every other body in the universe. One would need to be outside of the universe to test Newtons law; therefore it is impossible to check the validity of the first law. It begins to become apparent why it was so difficult to land the first probes using 300 years-old science. Readers are encouraged to check these facts for themselves.

We have some advanced backing for what’s to come at http://www.auah.es/Challenging dominant physics paradigms by Juan Miguel Campanario and Brian Martin who tell us: “The usual image of the scientist is of a cool, calm, detached, objective observer, but the reality is quite different (Mahoney 1976; Mitroff 1974), as anyone who knows scientists is aware. The classic study of the psychology of scientists is Ian Mitroff’s book The Subjective Side of Science, in which he revealed that Apollo moon scientists were strikingly committed to their ideas, so much so that contrary evidence seemed to have little influence on their views. As well, scientists express strong views, often quite derogatory, about other scientists. To expect every scientist to react coolly and objectively to a competitor’s idea is wishful thinking, though there are some scientists who approach the ideal. Intriguingly, Mitroff found that it was often the top scientists who were the most strongly committed to their ideas.” http://www.uah.es/otrosweb/jmc

Ranger

The original NASA explanations as to why the early Moon probes missed their target included everything but gravity, and it’s only in the past few years that NASA has actually admitted that gravity played any part in its lunar probe failures. They now attribute all of their past problems to mascons, high concentrations of heavy matter embedded in the lunar surface. Although these anomalies do account for orbital inconsistencies they cannot explain all of the questions to be considered regarding the failure of the original probes. This is the reason the post below from Keelynet.com it appears almost prophetic in pointing to gravity as the cause. Jim Ostrowski’s insight leads him to the conclusion that gravity was the problem, although he thinks it may be due to lunar centre of mass anomalies following the lead of NASA’s Dr. Gordon MacDonald and his hollow Moon theory. Yes, that’s right, it was originally a NASA idea and not a conspiracy theory. There may be other reasons, but it’s interesting that Jim is not the only one who thinks something is radically wrong with newtonian gravitation theory. We will later examine the options:

Jim Ostrowski, Subject: Luna, “Evidence from the early space probes that lunar gravitational gradient calculations were possibly flawed: The United States and the Soviet Union started to send probes to the Moon in the late fifties. Most of these initial probes met with miserable failure. It is posited here that the reason for these early failures was due to a miscalculation of the lunar gravitational gradient.

While it would appear that the calculated mass of the moon was accurate enough to determine the surface gravity (1/6 of Earth’s gravity) this is not sufficient data required to properly calculate landing or impact velocities if the moon were assumed to be a hollow spheroid instead of a homogeneous mass of rock throughout it’s volume. This is because in the case of a hollow spheroid the centre of mass is much closer to the surface of the moon if in fact the moon is hollow than if it really were a homogeneous mass of rock. The location of the centre of mass of any celestial object is critical in determining it’s gravitational gradient, hence the final velocity of any object required to soft-land or otherwise come in contact with the moon would not be known unless the location of the centre of mass is somehow determined.
See Wiki ‘Hollow Moon’ – they blame it on the Russians.

Luna 1

The first of three early successful probes, Luna 1, was launched by the Russians on January 2, 1959, was not required to land, but rather “Flyby” the moon at a distance of about 4600 miles. This is a sufficient distance from the surface where exact knowledge of the location of the centre of mass is not critical to success.

Luna 2 became the first man made object to hit the moon. Here though, the probe was allegedly not designed to withstand impact, so no conclusions were drawn about the fact that it ceased to function thereafter.

Luna 3 circled the far side of the moon, took some pictures, and sent them back to the earth. Strangely, Russian moon exploration came to a four year stop after these initial successes. The Russians were characteristically secretive about the data they collected.

The American efforts were almost laughable at first. The Ranger space probes were designed to hard land on the moon.

Ranger 5 missed the moon by 450 miles and the whole program was put on hold for two years.

Ranger 6 allegedly had it’s electrical system burn out in flight and no pictures were sent. (Recall the net electric charge of Earth and the Moon was discounted not to mention the probable resultant discharge? Just theoretical!)

The Russians re-activated their space program, but their: Luna 5, launched on May 9, 1964, crashed at full speed on the moon, when it was intended to make a soft landing. Luna 6 utterly missed the moon.

Luna 7 crashed on the moon when it’s retro rockets fired too soon, which is a significant detail in relation to where one assumes the moon’s centre of gravity to be located in relation to the surface.
This is because of the fact that if the moon were assumed to be a homogeneous rock, the braking required to make a soft landing could begin taking place at an earlier time than if the moon were a hollow spheroid of the same mass.
The reason for this is that the acceleration that gravity imparts to a landing spacecraft is lower if the centre of mass is further away from the landing surface, therefore a slower burn rate of fuel is allowable to soften the landing. Hence an earlier ignition starting time may be allowed.
Ignition start time is also one of the easiest flight parameters to control, much more so than burn rates on any rocket motor.
Miscalculation of the moon’s gravitational gradient cannot therefore be ruled out as a reason for the too early start time of Luna 7’s landing rocket motor.

(Note: As we will see on this page, this is what almost happened to Apollo 11. The cause is other than centre of gravity miscalculation, but clearly related to gravity and will be discussed. For those who correctly point to the fact that gravity measurements are commonly and successfully used to land aircraft on Earth, we must remember that they have been calibrated for Earth-gravity use alone over many decades. Transferring formulae to another cosmic body could easily lead to problems that science would be unlikely to want to examine. There is much evidence that this is true.)

Luna 8 also crashed on the moon , but Luna 9 was successful, and became the first spacecraft to soft land on the moon.

Lunar probes from both the United States and the Soviet Union were more successful after this. This cannot most likely be attributed to some sudden advance in the quality of the hardware or telemetry methods of both space programs, whereas it is much more likely to be a result of recalculation of the lunar gravitational gradient. 35

We interrupt Jim Ostrowski’s post here with some additional information:

The mission Radar Altimeter and the question: why were they was so ineffective?
Some clues:Radar Altimeter: “Invented in 1924, by American engineer Lloyd Espenschied. However, it took 14 years before Bell Labs was able to put Espenschied’s device in a form that was adaptable for aircraft use. In 1938 in co-operation with Bell Labs, United Air Lines fitted a radar type device to some of its airliners as a terrain avoidance device.” (Note: the pre-1940’s major technology, something that we will return to in these pages and not forgetting the fact that the radar altimeter had been around for a long time before the Moon missions) 36

The radar altimeter and the gravimeter were available for use on all of the early lunar probes along with sophisticated telemetry-radio equipment. The lander height above the Lunar surface was known and all instruments were capable of being monitored and controlled by NASA back on Earth with only just over a two second delay. The point being that the disastrous Moon crashes and the Apollo 11 near disaster (See below) were obviously due to not knowing the position above the Lunar surface.
How can this be?
One possibility is that the height reading did not agree with the gravity reading. The almost disastrous Apollo 11 landing, when the computer went haywire after receiving data from the ground radar (altimeter). If a height reading disagreed with a gravity reading you can be sure it would be the height reading that would be jettisoned, which is, it seems, exactly what happened with Apollo 11.

Before the first (soft) landing attempt of an early probe, the gravity reading would probably be re-calibrated to one sixth Earth gravity in agreement with theory and all subsequent probes would be set the same. I don’t argue that this is the exact scenario, but something very much akin to this would certainly have happened if a gravity reading was questioned. There is no way that science will admit to an error of sacrosanct gravity theory – too much at stake. I note with interest that even with today’s sophisticated altimeters, even the recent Curiosity Mars Rover mission has elected to lower the craft to the surface with wires, a mark of instrument (gravity) distrust? Such is science’s trust in Newton’s – as we will see – somewhat unreliable gravity equation, that also serves as a pillar supporting the whole architecture of physics. The reason given by NASA is to prevent dust rising due to the landing thrusters.

Apollo 11 landing “As the Eagle’s landing radar acquired the surface, several computer error alarms appeared. The first was a code 1202 alarm, and even with their extensive training neither Armstrong nor Aldrin was aware of what this code meant. They promptly received word from CAPCOM in Houston that the alarms were not a concern; the 1202 and 1201 alarms were caused by an executive overflow (computer overload) in the lunar module computer.” 37

And again: “Four minutes into the Powered Descent, Eagle rotated ‘face up’ so that the radar on its underside was able to acquire the lunar surface and supply data on altitude and rate-of-descent. “We needed to get the landing radar into the equation pretty soon, ”Armstrong told Hansen, “because Earth didn’t know how close we were and we didn’t want to get too close to the lunar surface before we got that radar.” This showed them to be 10.1 km; a kilometre or so lower than the computer reckoned, because that was tracking their mean height above the surface, rather than their actual height.” 38

We need to know how this is possible and if it was safe to have two different heights above the Lunar surface? What? A kilometre or so lower than the computer reckoned” is more than enough for a disaster to occur. A kilometre or so is ten percent of the height of the spacecraft. One has to ask where this mean height came from and how it was calculated, as it is absolutely useless to anyone attempting to land on the Moon. Shutting off the retro-rockets a kilometre above the moon would mean certain disaster, death to the astronauts. “computers will unquestioningly process the most nonsensical of input data (“garbage in garbage out”) and produce nonsensical output.” 39

Back to Jim Ostrowski (Part 2)
In part 1, I have attempted to demonstrate how evidence from the early lunar space missions showed that something appeared to be lacking in the required effort to land the unmanned space craft on the lunar surface. The totality of that evidence indicates that it is at least possible that the calculations of the lunar gravitational gradient were just plain erroneous for some reason. The lunar orbiting space missions demonstrated even more evidence that the moon might not be a solid homogeneous rock throughout it’s volume. The most important evidence of this kind where this supposition was proven beyond all doubt was the discovery of the so called “mascons” or Mass Concentrations of Gravity that appear in some places around the lunar globe. These “mascons” were discovered by the Lunar Orbiter series of space missions of the late 1960’s. NASA reported that the gravitational pull caused by these mascons was so pronounced that the spacecraft dipped slightly and accelerated when flitting by the circular lunar plains. (But not enough to crash a Lunar Mission spacecraft) This showed that there must be some hidden structures of some kind of dense, heavy matter centred like a bulls eye under the circular maria.

No scientist has ever accounted for how these mascons got there or could have been formed by random natural processes. There is other data from the manned Apollo lunar exploration series that makes a case for the idea that the moon might not be a natural object formed by random processes such as congealing from a dust-cloud, billions of years ago.
The most significant fact revealed from the samples of lunar soil and rocks brought back to earth by the Apollo astronauts is that the moon and earth cannot possibly share the same origins. The reason for this is the vastly different ages of the earth and moon as determined from samples of lunar material collected by the Apollo Astronauts.

Over 99 percent of the moon rocks brought back turned out upon analysis to be older than 90 percent of the rocks that can be found on the earth. The first rock that Neil Armstrong picked up after landing on the Sea of Tranquillity turned out to be 3.6 billion years old.
Other rocks turned out to be even older, 4.3, 4.5, 4.6 and one alleged to be even 5.3 billion years old. The oldest rocks found on earth are only 3.7 billion years old, and the area that the moon rocks came from was thought by scientists to be one of the youngest areas on the moon!

(Note: The reason for this is claimed to be because the earth’s rocks have been recycled due to plate tectonics, a theory that the author has good reason to doubt. We will discuss this elsewhere)

Scientists have generally offered three major theories to account for the moons orbit around our planet. All of these are in serious trouble. One theory was that the moon might have been born alongside the earth from the same cloud of gas and dust about 4.6 billion years ago. This theory had to be junked after the lunar rock and soil samples were analysed for their ages, as outlined above. Another theory that the moon had somehow been ripped out of the earth, from the pacific basin, perhaps. This explanation fails for the same reason.
The third theory, that the moon had somehow been captured by the earth’s gravitational field is interesting, but still not satisfactory, that is if it is assumed that the moon is a “natural” object manoeuvred about by random gravitational processes. However, this theory is the most favoured by scientists today. There are enormous objections to overcome in this last theory because of the extremely difficult celestial mechanics involved. (To admit to a capture theory is to give credence to Velikovsky et al and Earth’s encounter with Venus, something so terrible to contemplate that science is prepared to modify its theories to avoid it.)

For one thing, any object entering the vicinity of the earth from elsewhere in the solar system has an initial velocity imparted by the sun’s gravitational influence. The only confirmation that could possibly result in a rendezvous with the earth, would appear to be one where the moon had originated somewhere within the orbit of the earth around the sun.
The possibility of this occurring as a result of some random natural process is staggeringly minuscule. The moon would have to have been “launched” from another planet (Venus or Mercury) or even from the Sun itself. If that were the case, then the lunar rocks and soil samples would be younger, not older than rocks found on earth.
However, the probability that the moon came from elsewhere in the solar system outside the orbit of the earth is even more remote, if not totally impossible. This is because, as the moon approaches the earth from outside earth orbit it would be gaining speed, and as it got near the earth, a braking manoeuvre would be required to put it into the orbit that it now has.
A braking manoeuvre can only be accomplished with thrusting systems under intelligent control of some kind.

As NASA scientist Robin Brett aptly summerised, “It seems easier to explain the non-existence of the moon than it’s existence.” But of course, the moon exists. Why or how it exists remains a mystery. 41
End of Jim Ostrowski’s part 2 of 2 and many thanks.

Compare the above with a much more recent NASA article: Bizarre Lunar Orbits Nov. 6, 2006 “Lunar mascons are a mystery. Although scientists generally agree they resulted from ancient impacts billions of years ago, it’s unclear how much of the excess mass is due to denser lava material filling the crater or how much is due to up-welling of denser iron-rich mantle material to the crust. Regardless of composition or origin, the mascons make the Moon the most gravitationally “lumpy” body known in the solar system. Although mascons also exist on Mars, none have been found on Venus or Earth; those two larger planets, however, have had an active tectonic (geological) past that has drawn their crusts down into their interiors several times in the past few billion years, homogenising the distribution of mass.” 42 Note the assumption that Venus has plate tectonics! any port in a storm? Also that plate tectonics would work on the much hotter Venus in just the same way as it does on Earth? Again, note also the assumption that the Moon was ever hot enough for mantle-iron to be up-welling to the crust or even the assumption of a an iron-rich mantle; it’s all pure conjecture.

The Search for the Neutral Point of Gravity, Earth-Moon.

The Neutral Point of Gravity (NP) between Earth and Moon is the point where the gravity of Earth and Moon are equal. The point at which a traveller from Earth becomes subject to the influence of the Moon’s gravity. An uphill journey becomes a downhill coast to the Moon at this point, the craft being free from Earth’s gravity and within the Moon’s domain of attraction. Apollo astronauts found it not to be in the position predicted by newtonian gravitational law.

(The Neutral Point should not be confused with the Lagrangian or L points.) 43

Distance Earth-Moon NP
It must be remembered that the Moon’s orbit is an ellipse and so distances for the NP will vary according to the Moon’s position in its orbit, but only within the bounds of the Moon’s orbital ellipse. Also important when calculating the NP is the fact that the the neutral point is also elliptical and smaller than the Moon’s orbit by the particular distance given. This must be taken into account when using the various given positions.

“An accelerometer on the Apollo Command Module should have discerned the exact point where each spacecraft went through the neutral point on their journey to the Moon, but no explicit reference could be found to confirm this.”

“The official distance between the Moon and the Earth varies from around 356,400 km (221,456 mi) perigees (closest point to Earth) … to 406,700 km (252,712 mi) at the extreme apogee (farthest point from Earth).” 44
The Lunar orbit seems to vary by around plus or minus 15,628 miles from an average orbital distance of 237,084 miles and any value for the NP should be within these two limits. The distance from Earth to the NP will be somewhat less by from 23,900 (Newton) to around 43,000 miles depending on who gives the distance.
There may be confusion with nautical and English miles in the ‘Yahoo Answers’ below. However the miles appear to be English miles, but this is not a fixed rule. Is this all part of an attempt to deceive, inveigle and obfuscate?

I did some research and finding an astronomy forum I asked if astronomers were foremost stargazers or mathematicians. The unanimous answer was that they were all mathematicians. And so it would be a simple task for them to calculate the neutral point – but they don’t, they avoided the question.

Yahoo Answers: “Best Answer – Chosen by Voters. “It was Sir Isaac Newton who had first calculated the Earth-Moon neutral point using his theory of gravitation. That theory gave him an average Earth- Moon distance of 238,900 miles, and the neutral point thus occurred at ~ 23,900 miles from the moon. ( 215,000 miles from Earth)
This of course gave the familiar figure that the Moon’s gravitational attraction was about 1/6th that of Earth.”

Note: NASA’s calculations are much the same, something which contradicts the claim that Newton’s theory has been improved upon over time with more up-to-date mathematics and Einstein’s general relativity. NASA is using the original Newtonian gravity theory.

But then came a 1969 edition of Time magazine, an interview with Werner Von Braun, the man himself, and the beginning of a persistent mathematical mystery concerning the Earth-Moon dual planetary system. Time reported that “43,495 miles from the Moon, lunar gravity exerted a force equal to the gravity of the Earth, then some 200,000 miles distant.”
If this neutral point figure is correct, the Moon is much more massive than any standard view of celestial mechanics will allow. A mere two weeks after the Time magazine article, Werner Von Braun quite suddenly resigned all his NASA posts and took a position as Vice President for Fairchild Industries. It began a process of “arithmetical obfuscation”, that can only be seen as deliberate, since to view what happened as not being deliberate would be akin to charging NASA and Braun with gross mathematical incompetence.

(Newton’s neutral point (NP) is 23,900 miles from the moon – Braun’s NP is 43,495 miles from the Moon.)

Another example: in the 1981 edition of Baker’s Space Technology, the Apollo 11 distance to the Moon is given as 253,475 miles. (Compare NASA 238,855 miles and Wiki’s average 237,084 miles)
But the book ‘Apollo 11 Moon Landing’ gave the distance as just under 250,400 miles.

Then in 1996 Baker’s Spaceflight and Rocketry gave the neutral point as 38,925 miles from the Moon and 214,550 miles from the Earth, giving a total distance Earth/ Moon of 253,475 miles. (NASA 238,855 miles to the Moon and Newton said the neutral point occurred at ~ 23,900 miles from the moon.)

In Michael Collins, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys, he says “Houston reports the instant at which we leave the lunar sphere of influence. This means simply that despite the fact we are only thirty four thousand (34,000) nautical miles from the moon, and still 174,000 from the earth, the earth’s pull has become dominant, and the mathematical equations now recognise that fact.”
What mathematical equations is he talking about, certainly not Newton’s?
Conversion from nautical to English miles is: 34,000 U.S. nautical miles = 39,126 English miles.
Newton’s neutral point is 23,900 English miles from the moon.
The SI standard is said to be used by science throughout the world and yet NASA, responsible for ‘rocket science’, does not use it.

“SI (metric system) is the world’s most widely used system of measurement, used in both everyday commerce and science. The system has been nearly globally adopted with Burma, Liberia and the United States not having adopted SI units as their official system of weights and measures. While only the US does not commonly use metric units outside of science, medicine, and the government.” 46
So if the US uses the SI system in science, medicine, and government, why does not NASA use it? We are told that NASA space missions are science and that it is a government (military) agency? Would it be churlish of me to ask what the fabled NASA scientists were doing while this was going on? No scientist would give a distance Moon-spacecraft in nautical miles and so we can be sure that no scientist was involved. The question presents itself as to whether there were any scientists involved in the mission or if there were, what did they do or what are they doing? Even during the 1999 Climate Orbiter mission the problem of measurement was still causing problems:

Mars Climate Orbiter“September 23, 1999, communication with the spacecraft was lost as the spacecraft went into orbital insertion, due to ground based computer software which produced output in Imperial units of pound-seconds (lbf×s) instead of the specified metric units of newton-seconds (N×s). The spacecraft encountered Mars at an improperly low altitude, causing it to incorrectly enter the upper atmosphere and disintegrate.” 47 We seem to have no choice but to conclude that NASA has no scientific standards for measurement and that support from science is minimal!

“To confound matters even further, space experts at NASA or elsewhere do not state whether they are using surface to surface, or centre to centre measurements. Nor do they state whether they are using nautical miles or statute miles, English or US miles. Nor do they stick to any one system. In short, “the only consistency in the Earth-Moon measurement scenario is the inconsistency of the data emanating from official sources.” 48

We are all well aware that a curved path trajectory is used to get to the Moon and that the total miles traveled by the spacecraft is dependent on the trajectory length, but nowhere is it stated that these distances are trajectory distances. The Earth-spacecraft distance stays the same whatever the trajectory, as does the distance to the Moon’s orbit. The neutral point is fixed plus or minus within the orbital parameters given above.

Lunar Landings
If we return to the discussion on early space probes above, we see that they usually made it to the Moon, but problems arose when close to the lunar surface or attempting to orbit the Moon. Landing was a particular problem throughout the programs culminating with Apollo 11, that came near to disaster. The same applies to more recent Mars probes: the landing and navigation systems seem almost totally unaware of the position of the surface even though they all had a ground radar altimeter. This would only be explainable in terms of a conflict of computer input data, from one instrument giving height above the ground and input from a faulty gravity measurement giving a different height. It is not in the nature of a scientist to consider the possibility that gravity theory may be at fault, even though it has been no secret that it was faulty from its inception. But then we would have to admit that there are scientists at nasa. 🙂

David Pratt discusses some anomalies regarding gravity: “According to Newtonian theory, the gravitational force between two or more bodies is therefore dependent on their masses. However, the gravitational acceleration of an attracted body is not dependent on its mass: if dropped simultaneously from a tower, and if air resistance is ignored, a tennis ball and a cannonball will hit the ground simultaneously. This is explained by means of Newton’s second law of motion, which states that the force applied to a body equals the mass of the body multiplied by its acceleration (Force = mass x acceleration ); this implies that gravity pulls harder on larger masses.”
In this somewhat technical article David Pratt explains how, if Newtons two force equations are combined the one becomes irreconcilable with the other.

“The Devil’s Dictionary defines gravitation as: ‘The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportioned to the quantity of matter they contain – the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another’. Such is the seemingly circular logic underlying standard gravity theory. The figures given for the masses and densities of all planets, stars, etc. are purely theoretical; nobody has ever placed one on a balance and weighed it! It should be borne in mind, however, that weight is always a relative measure, since one mass can only be weighed in relation to some other mass. The fact that observed artificial satellite speeds match predictions is usually taken as evidence that the fundamentals of Newtonian theory must be correct.” 48b However, the Solar System has planets that have satellites just like our Moon and these enable astronomers to calculate orbital speed without reference to Newtons theories. It’s interesting that Newton was said to have complained that the problem of the Moon’s motion was the only one that made his head ache and this was due, in no small degree to the Tree Body Problem. It troubled him for the rest of his life as neither he nor anyone else was able to plot the Moon’s position accurately using his method.

Newton’s gravitation theory did not work for the Moon, and during his lifetime, contemporary astronomers told him so, and disregarded his work, preferring ‘the older tried and tested methods’ of lunar positioning. (maybe these older methods are still used by astronomers to calculate artificial satellite speeds?) However, such was his influence at the Royal Society, that his laws of universal gravitation were ‘enforced’ and remain in place as dogma to this day.

The position of the Neutral Gravity Point is an ideal means to check the universal gravitational theory because there are still apparent problems just as there were in Newton’s day. One of these was the three body problem: “In its traditional sense, the three-body problem is the problem of taking an initial set of data that specifies the positions, masses and velocities of three bodies (Earth, Sun, Moon) for some particular point in time and then determining the motions of the three bodies, in accordance with the laws of classical mechanics (Newton’s laws of motion and of universal gravitation). In 1887, mathematicians Ernst Bruns and Henri Poincaré showed that there is no general analytical solution for the three-body problem given by algebraic expressions and integrals. The motion of three bodies is generally non-repeating, except in special cases. 48c

‘Wisegeek’ grossly understates the problem: “Around the late 19th century, astronomers began to notice that Newton’s law did not perfectly account for observed gravitational phenomena in our solar system, notably in the case of Mercury’s orbit. Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, published in 1915, resolved the issue of Mercury’s orbit, …” 48d Then why did NASA not use Einstein’s calculations?
Note: Objections to the Einstein resolution of Mercury’s orbital anomalies continue to this day. 49 The three body problem is active for every planet and moon in the Solar System and indeed for every star in the galaxy. But then, the surprising revelation from Wiki that the position of our nearest cosmic body has never been known with any certainty.:

Laser Ranging
“The ongoing Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment measures the distance between the Earth and the Moon using laser ranging. Lasers on Earth are aimed at retro-reflectors planted on the Moon during the Apollo program, and the time for the reflected light to return is determined.” 50 “The most significant improvement of position observations of the moon have been the lunar laser ranging measurements, obtained using earth-bound lasers and special retro-reflectors placed on the surface of the moon.” 51
Every now and then a bombshell like the statement above appears proving that the position was not known before Apollo when the laser reflector was put in place. But even with Lunar laser ranging there is none of the usual accuracy to the nth decimal point that we have come to expect from a highly mathematically oriented astronomical community. One would expect that there would be at the least a standard, average Earth-Moon distance derived from claimed accurate laser ranging measurements, but confusion reigns with wildly varying estimates given. This reinforces the notion that nature, in her guise of orbits and gravity, does not lend herself to accurate analysis, and that science does not work in the way that we are told it does. One can only assume that the Moon’s position, even today, cannot be accurately calculated. Newton’s gravitational law was originally supposed to remedy this situation and when it failed to do so, we are told that Einstein’s general relativity would do the job; it also obviously didn’t work.
Of interest: Newton tried to solve the precession paradox or the precession of the equinox, whereby the equinox moves backward through the constellations 50 seconds of an arc annually and again his equations turned-out to be wrong. Newton is not infallible.

It may have come as a surprise to some that, as already mentioned above, prior knowledge of the Solar System, including the Moon, was almost completely abandoned and replaced by knowledge gained with the advent of space exploration. That almost everything written about the Solar System planets and their moons in the 1950’s and even later has been thrown overboard and replaced by NASA updates. If we extrapolate this 1950’s lack of knowledge and apply it to the unexplored and inestimably more vast remainder of the cosmos, we still see the implausible but unwavering certainty of astronomers, physicists and cosmologists of the fifties in today’s scientists. They are still absolutely sure they ‘know how it all works’ with their consensus, single, but all-encompassing theories excluding all others.
What is taught by astronomers is fable.STATUS: Confused and seriously considering ignoring all scientific knowledge.

There is an argument on a WikiTalk page that promises to answer all of this, but comes across as as being a little lame: Wiki editor Numbskll defends gravity: He says “They appear to be confusing the Moon’s sphere of influence and the point at which the Moon’s gravitation and Earth’s are equal. NASA were concerned with the Moon’s sphere of influence, which starts around 40,000 miles from the Moon, and marks the point where the Moon’s gravity has more influence on the spacecraft’s trajectory than the Earth’s. The ‘Apollo 16 Flight Journal'[85] comments on this: “we’re scheduled to cross that mythical line known as the lunar Sphere of Influence, the point of which we begin calculating the increasing of the lunar gravity on the spacecraft. Our displays here in Mission Control shortly after that point are generally switched over to Moon reference from Earth reference. The velocities that we have been watching decrease steadily up to now, will then begin to increase as the spacecraft is accelerated toward the Moon..” The point where the lunar gravity and Earth’s gravity are equal is around 25,000 miles, (from what?) so there’s no discrepancy to explain: they appear to be measuring different things.”

What (on the Moon) is “the Moon’s sphere of influence ?, gravity extends to infinity.
“They certainly are “measuring different things”, “they” are working from observations while Numbskll is working from a theory, a formula that will always give the same result. Something he wouldn’t dream of examining for possible error because science no longer knows the difference between theory and actual experience. I’ve found that even astronomers tend to avoid or just don’t acknowledge the point where the influence of Earth and Moon are equal and often confuse it with the Lagrange points as we will see. There is a midway point where the gravity of the Earth and the Moon are equal, but no one wants to talk about it. The reason may be that a TRUE lunar gravity gradient can be calculated from such data.

Numbskll:“Spacecraft from several nations have travelled to or past the Moon, so unless all their space programs are part of the conspiracy, at least one should have told us by now if the mass of the Moon was incorrect. (They all depend on the same theory and are confused just like us, but Numbskll uses the oft used and scientifically sanctioned get out of jail scam – ridicule.)
Similarly, if Lunar gravity was four times as high as generally believed, it would be demonstrable on Earth in unexpectedly large tidal motion.”

Numbskull has become totally brain-numb and ludicrous at this point, losing his reasoning powers completely. No, the Moon’s gravitational pull on Earth has always been the same. It’s the theory that says the Moon’s gravitational pull is 6% that of the Earth, …it’s a theory for crying-out-loud. If the theory is in error and needs to be changed to a higher value, changing it will not change Earth-gravity or the tides or the Moon. He thinks theory is real and he cannot compute anything else. Note the circular reasoning used to explain away a genuine enquiry. …IF the mass of the Moon was incorrect, says it all. Theoretical mass and actual mass can be different values in a real world.

What we find here is something not uncommon to science, it’s called ‘circular reasoning’; he uses the problem itself (gravitational theory) as the answer to a problem caused by gravitational theory.
Wiki editor Numbskll again: “The Surveyor program Moon landers had an engine thrust of 150 pounds and their landing weight was approximately 660 pounds on Earth. Five of these spacecraft soft-landed on the moon in 1966-68. If the Moon’s surface gravity was much larger than one-sixth that Earth’s, the spacecraft would not be able to soft-land on the Moon.”

Soft landing was one of, if not ‘the’ most troublesome problem that NASA experienced. Apollo 11 was completely out of fuel on landing.

Surveyor 2, Launched 20 September 1966, crashed on the Moon 22 September 1966
Surveyor 4 Launched 14 July 1967, radio contact lost 17 July 1967 2.5 minutes from touchdown, probably also may have crashed? No fuel?
The Surveyors had long legs equipped with shock absorbers and it was admitted that it would be dropped from a height of 13 feet at the end of the retro’ burn. NASA was prepared for a bumpy ride. But why, if there was an altimeter on-board?

Although gravity does depend on planetary and lunar mass, it can also be arrived at from the position of the NP. It should be possible to calculate the position of the NP and it should agree with observation if the theory of gravity is valid, but that seems not to be an option. If the mass of the moon is higher than that calculated by theory it will be observed that the NP does not appear where theory predicts, which is what we are discussing.
The second point is that all such arguments from science-oriented-minds tend to put the logical cart before the horse. The assumption is made that a calculation based on newtonian gravity theory has to be correct. This is completely missing the point that the theory may be in error, but science treats all such theories in this sacrosanct and decidedly odd manner.

Wiki editor Numbskll says: “The site fails to note that the flight paths of the Apollo crafts were curved, not straight-line, so the neutral point within their flight paths would be significantly larger than the straight-line neutral point range of 22,000-25,000 miles (for illustration, see the bands of gravitational influence in the diagram accompanying Lagrangian point). The ‘Time’ article’s statement would then be equally as true as the early 1960,s ‘Britannica’. The statement that the 1973 ‘Britannica’ reported a different figure is currently unverified. The 1966 edition of The World Book Encyclopedia (volume 13, page 650) gives the Moon’s surface gravity as one-sixth that of Earth’s.”

It would be pointless to position a NP on a curved flight path as this would be meaningless in terms of distance between Earth and Moon. Equally ridiculous is the idea that the measured distance Earth/Moon of a lunar mission can be given when the craft makes several Earth and Lunar orbits, there would be no start or end point.

Note: The Lagrangian point is totally different from the neutral point and irrelevant to the discussion. 53 54

STATUS: still confused, 43 years after the first manned Lunar landing mission and 53 years after the first Moon probe at the time of writing. What are we to make of the above? We are told by scientists on an almost daily basis that the public at large does not understand science and that we all need more education in the subject. What kind of education are they talking about? Is it the kind that prevents us from asking why scientists refuse to discuss the neutral point of gravity between the Earth and Moon? Or can it be the kind that stops us from asking why NASA is airbrushing Lunar images? Maybe we will learn why NASA is the only scientific organisation in the world that does not use the SI measurement system and why they don’t tell anyone what system they are using at a particular moment in time? Maybe someday they will tell us why they airbrush-out areas of the Moon?